In old 2 ed. you could play a good or evil cleric, with no real difference in party role.
Yes, good clerics scared undead, evil rebuke them, but that was all .. with no undead, there was no real difference .. an evil cleric could even try to disguise his allignement with no real trouble ...
In 3 ed. thing changed, when "healing" and "good" concept where confused.
While good clerics can have fun, with spontaneus healing, non more forced to sacrifice all their spell to cure, evil clerics had just the most unusefull option of converting spell into "inflict spell", an option really useless in most game ( never seen a cleric using this spell, just swing your mace and do more harm taking less risk), and complettly useless out of combat.
In Pathfinder the difference is even greater ... good clerics can really speed up the game a lot using Channel Energy to heal the party, quite powerfull spell, but very goot to let the game flow smoothly ...
On the other side an evil cleric can't use Channel energy to heal players, leaving the game slow and unfun.
Surelly, he can use Channel energy to do more damage then a sorcerer, after all using Channel energy with negative energy is nearly the same than casting the 7 level spell "Inflict Serious Wounds, Mass:" ... and a 16 cha cleric can use it 6 times a day ... is a deadly spell at low or middle level.
But the 'slow game problem' remains, unless the party can find lots and lots of healing wands. A way to let the evil cleric get more and better healing is necessary to let the game be fun ...
Besides, the fact that healing is linked with allignement prevents any kind of plot with a cleric disguising his allignent ...
Hope you will excuse me for my poor english ...
Aside from the lack of spontaneous healing and channeling negative energy, there's nothing stopping an evil cleric from preparing cure spells in their regular spell slots.
Although the possibility that good clerics will now be known for "mass healing" via their channel positive energy ability, finding a cleric unwilling or unable to do so is likely to start people asking questions, which is never a good thing for evil clerics.
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If your buddies are undead, channeling negative energy heals 'em right up quite nicely. Certainly this is less likely for PCs (but not unheard of), but certainly works for NPCs.
As for not being quite to good at healing the living? It's a trade-off for the ability to deal out mass damage to your living foes. Hey, and if you're evil, when your buddy whines for healing, tell him, "Hey, what have you done for me lately?"
:D
If your buddies are undead, channeling negative energy heals 'em right up quite nicely. Certainly this is less likely for PCs (but not unheard of), but certainly works for NPCs.
As for not being quite to good at healing the living? It's a trade-off for the ability to deal out mass damage to your living foes. Hey, and if you're evil, when your buddy whines for healing, tell him, "Hey, what have you done for me lately?"
:D
Not all evil are so stupid, anyhow ... that can be for a selfish chaotic evil, but a legal evil cleric in a mission for his good can understand very well the importance of working together with other components of the party ... as long as they are usefull to his mission, at least ... and how more usefull they can be if they are kept in good healt ..
O well, the party will probably have to rest one or two days after any fight, unless they find an endless stock of light cure ...
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Aside from the lack of spontaneous healing and channeling negative energy, there's nothing stopping an evil cleric from preparing cure spells in their regular spell slots.
Although the possibility that good clerics will now be known for "mass healing" via their channel positive energy ability, finding a cleric unwilling or unable to do so is likely to start people asking questions, which is never a good thing for evil clerics.
easy "sorry i used my last dime of power in the orphanage of the last town, i can help you right now" *returns later to be sure they are all dead with a wave of negative energy*
Not all evil are so stupid, anyhow ... that can be for a selfish chaotic evil, but a legal evil cleric in a mission for his good can understand very well the importance of working together with other components of the party ... as long as they are usefull to his mission, at least ... and how more usefull they can be if they are kept in good healt ..
O well, the party will probably have to rest one or two days after any fight, unless they find an endless stock of light cure ...
consider this...
its NOT about the Cleric... is about the godtell me how many evil gods would like (or eba ble to send) positive energy to their allies
positive energy is not about good, is about life, negativeenergy is death... good and neutral clerics serving good gods (or some neutral) would only receive positive energy, ebcause that is what the gods deals, the evil ones and dark neutral send negative energy, that is how their spells are infused, so there is not life but darkness in them
they can force themselves to channel healing energy, but their focus is corrupt or destroy, or both
consider this...
its NOT about the Cleric... is about the god
tell me how many evil gods would like (or eba ble to send) positive energy to their allies
Evil priests can prepare cure spells, so I think the answer to this question is "all of them".
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And evil clerics are still going to want to heal their living allies, which in a wider world are going to be more common and more numerous than their undead allies. I can think of a ton of reasons why a cleric of Asmodeus would want to heal folks, the least of which is that he could then with-hold that healing at a later time to blackmail someone.
Plus not all evil gods are pro-undead.
I kinda like the idea of differentiating clerics by splitting up their spell list into a very small "general" list and then a bunch by domain. Perhaps then it would be ok to let them turn and rebuke and spont. cast cures and inflicts, on a use-by-use basis. Or perhaps evil clerics can do both, but good clerics get something else instead, maybe a bonus to healing.
Well, i can say that the correlation between allignement and life ( or unlife) energy has not a real reason to exists in such terms ... it was introduced in 3 ed. when words like 'positive' for life or 'negative' for unlife where associated to clerics and confused with 'good' and 'evil' ...
But what i need is a way to let the game work .. or evil cleric class is banned from game ( is the only class with such allignement problem as far as i can see, is no use to say "is just a different cleric" , except if you are playing a vampire party i cannot see how a party without a healer can work and have fun, adventuring one day for no more than one or two fight, then spend one or two days just to heal, and so on .... i besider do not think any cleric player would like to spend ALL his spell as cure)
Othewise there should be a fix to let the game work ( at very evil cleric should be able to heal in other ways, sacrificing the life of a prisoner or an innocent peasant, but i do not like to take the game so far towards evil .. ( and surelly such a cleric cannot disguise easily) ...,
After all there are more degrees of evil, not everyone goes around killing orphans, like a mad chaotic demon lover, maybe someone just belives that law is most important than everything and is ready to support law and order agains chaos even if this means help a tyrranical king against poor hungry peasant rebels ... or just greedy for power or money, ... )
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After all there are more degrees of evil, not everyone goes around killing orphans, like a mad chaotic demon lover, maybe someone just belives that law is most important than everything and is ready to support law and order agains chaos even if this means help a tyrranical king against poor hungry peasant rebels ... or just greedy for power or money, ... )
Many people have blinders on and can't see beyond this single sterotype of evil. I can't count the number of times that someone has argued that you can't have an evil character or party since they will always quickly betray or kill each other. That is simply ridiculous. You can't have these huge evil organizations like the Red Wizards of thay, The Zhents, the Scarlet Brotehrhood, or even Iuz's empire without some (I would say many) LE and NE archetypes that cooperate when it is in their best interest. To say otherwise is foolish, and contrary to decades of D&D fluff.
As to the turning problem, the lack of healing is bad, but can be worked around. the fact that an evil priest will kill his own minions and allies when he uses his channel power is a much, much bigger problem. Its a 30' burst - which means it goes in a circle around the caster. An evil priest cannot even use his channel power unless he has no living allies or is only using undead. That is a big problem from where I stand. Why even have the power, if you have so little ability to use it?
Ah...I'm trying to figure out how this thread relates to Ability Scores and Races.
Can someone give me a hint?
Thanks.
CJ
After all there are more degrees of evil, not everyone goes around killing orphans, like a mad chaotic demon lover, maybe someone just belives that law is most important than everything and is ready to support law and order agains chaos even if this means help a tyrranical king against poor hungry peasant rebels ... or just greedy for power or money, ... )
Many people have blinders on and can't see beyond this single sterotype of evil. I can't count the number of times that someone has argued that you can't have an evil character or party since they will always quickly betray or kill each other. That is simply ridiculous. You can't have these huge evil organizations like the Red Wizards of thay, The Zhents, the Scarlet Brotehrhood, or even Iuz's empire without some (I would say many) LE and NE archetypes that cooperate when it is in their best interest. To say otherwise is foolish, and contrary to decades of D&D fluff.
As to the turning problem, the lack of healing is bad, but can be worked around. the fact that an evil priest will kill his own minions and allies when he uses his channel power is a much, much bigger problem. Its a 30' burst - which means it goes in a circle around the caster. An evil priest cannot even use his channel power unless he has no living allies or is only using undead. That is a big problem from where I stand. Why even have the power, if you have so little ability to use it?
I think there must be a feat to prevent killing his own allies ... Selective Channeling i think is the name ... it is not, but i feel it should be given a free feat for evil clerics for they cannot use they cannelling powers without this ...
And yes ... The Dark Knight Order is an example of perfect working evil organization ... even with a strong sense of honour too
After all there are more degrees of evil, not everyone goes around killing orphans, like a mad chaotic demon lover, maybe someone just belives that law is most important than everything and is ready to support law and order agains chaos even if this means help a tyrranical king against poor hungry peasant rebels ... or just greedy for power or money, ... )
Many people have blinders on and can't see beyond this single sterotype of evil. I can't count the number of times that someone has argued that you can't have an evil character or party since they will always quickly betray or kill each other. That is simply ridiculous. You can't have these huge evil organizations like the Red Wizards of thay, The Zhents, the Scarlet Brotehrhood, or even Iuz's empire without some (I would say many) LE and NE archetypes that cooperate when it is in their best interest. To say otherwise is foolish, and contrary to decades of D&D fluff.
As to the turning problem, the lack of healing is bad, but can be worked around. the fact that an evil priest will kill his own minions and allies when he uses his channel power is a much, much bigger problem. Its a 30' burst - which means it goes in a circle around the caster. An evil priest cannot even use his channel power unless he has no living allies or is only using undead. That is a big problem from where I stand. Why even have the power, if you have so little ability to use it?
Good lord, they are evil. Yes they can heal if they take the spells, they are EVIL there has to be some down side to it. Everything doesn't have to be equal. Just take the spells to heal. its the down side to being evil. :)
Ignatz
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Perhaps there could be a feat that allows a cleric to channel the opposite type of energy. Since that would be powerful and perhaps a rare gift, it could have another "Turn" feat as a prerequisite. "Selective Channeling" would be an excellent choice, but since there are several, it could simply be "Must have any one channeling-related feat already".
That way the tools are there to build a cleric that has more flexibility and options, but the vast majority will still have the flavor of good vs evil, and positive vs negative.
Perhaps there could be a feat that allows a cleric to channel the opposite type of energy. Since that would be powerful and perhaps a rare gift, it could have another "Turn" feat as a prerequisite. "Selective Channeling" would be an excellent choice, but since there are several, it could simply be "Must have any one channeling-related feat already".
That way the tools are there to build a cleric that has more flexibility and options, but the vast majority will still have the flavor of good vs evil, and positive vs negative.
I think it should be a perfect solution ...
In my games, all clerics can spontaneously cast both cure and inflict spell. Removes the severe penalty evil clerics have compared to good clerics, and if for whatever reason someone wants to cast an inflict spell spontaneously, they all can do so.
Bur evil clerics having to use half their spell slots for healing spells, while good clerics can prepare twice the number of offensive and protective magic for no good reason just does not seem a good idea to me.
Perhaps there could be a feat that allows a cleric to channel the opposite type of energy.
That gets my vote. But maybe 1d6 less than normal.
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This doesn't really fit with the way the cleric is designed and conceptualised, at all.If good is not aligned with life and positive energy, and evil is not aligned with evil and negative energy, then where is the justification for a cleric to have turning or healing at all (as opposed to wizards for example)?
You're messing with a very basic tenet of D&D here. Which is fine for a house rule, I just really really wouldn't want it in Paizo's books.
But... clerics can already cast both kinds of spells. An evil cleric can pray for and receive "positive" healing spells, a good cleric can pray for and receive "negative" inflict spells.
By your argument, evil clerics, aligned with evil and negative energy as they are, should never receive the ability to heal at all.
Bringing wizards into the picture is comparing apples to oranges. Clerics cast spells that affect life. Pathfinder's take on channeling is a natural leap to make- the positive energy that sends an undead thing running is the same positive energy that heals a wound.
So why wouldn't a cleric who can cast both kinds of spells be able to channel both kinds of spells? Technically, it should be possible, but it would also be overpowered.
Thus, the "in character" reason it would require a feat is that your average good cleric, while able to cast inflict spells, has a much stronger connection to positive energies, and vice versa. It would be the rare cleric who was able to channel both.
There's probably a sweet background there, in fact, but out of character, "Feats: Selective Channeling, Versatile Channeling" represents that.
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And evil clerics are still going to want to heal their living allies, which in a wider world are going to be more common and more numerous than their undead allies. I can think of a ton of reasons why a cleric of Asmodeus would want to heal folks
Sadly, I can think of many fewer reasons why a cleric of Rovagug would.
If you are looking for a way to pass off as a good cleric while still being able to heal, a wand of cure light wounds is only 750 gp. When they ask why you never use your innate powers, just shrug and say "I like to hold on to my spells for emergencies."
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I think there must be a feat to prevent killing his own allies ... Selective Channeling i think is the name ... it is not, but i feel it should be given a free feat for evil clerics for they cannot use they cannelling powers without this ...
And yes ... The Dark Knight Order is an example of perfect working evil organization ... even with a strong sense of honour too
good clerics heal every living being within 30' so be it a friend or an evil cleric foe who is killing his friend
so yeah... there is no perfect world, but i would just be careful where i use my abilities
an for those who like magic items a word for those evil cleric that want to heal everyone... wand of healing
and one thing... the concept of good = positive energy = life, evil = negative energy = death, is not new concept, nor does it comes from 3.x
its amystical concept quite old, yin and yang and similar issues, as life and death are part of the cycle so is good and evil... ask any trueneutral druid
If you are looking for a way to pass off as a good cleric while still being able to heal, a wand of cure light wounds is only 750 gp. When they ask why you never use your innate powers, just shrug and say "I like to hold on to my spells for emergencies."
ok you can disguise the use of the wand! :D
maybe do it in the form of a ring or even better a "good holy symbol" for effect :Pthat is tantanomous to heresy... wouldn't you hatesuch an evil cleric when discovered?
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But... clerics can already cast both kinds of spells. An evil cleric can pray for and receive "positive" healing spells, a good cleric can pray for and receive "negative" inflict spells.By your argument, evil clerics, aligned with evil and negative energy as they are, should never receive the ability to heal at all.
Bringing wizards into the picture is comparing apples to oranges. Clerics cast spells that affect life. Pathfinder's take on channeling is a natural leap to make- the positive energy that sends an undead thing running is the same positive energy that heals a wound.
So why wouldn't a cleric who can cast both kinds of spells be able to channel both kinds of spells? Technically, it should be possible, but it would also be overpowered.
Thus, the "in character" reason it would require a feat is that your average good cleric, while able to cast inflict spells, has a much stronger connection to positive energies, and vice versa. It would be the rare cleric who was able to channel both.
There's probably a sweet background there, in fact, but out of character, "Feats: Selective Channeling, Versatile Channeling" represents that.
if such ever existed i would only allow it for Neutral characters
if the player chose to do an evil cleric he made his choise... he could still do a neutral character who uses positive energy but for whatever reason work with villains... haven't thought of that?
I kinda like the idea of differentiating clerics by splitting up their spell list into a very small "general" list and then a bunch by domain.I did this. I included every spell also, so a God of Fire lets his priests cast burning hands and fireball.
It takes a lot of time now to tailor spell lists to each deity. I only do it each time a new PC enters the game with a different deity. Also, you have to limit the total number of spells or it gets ridiculous. I only allow PHB & SpC.
Despite using a database of spells that automatically generates a "master list" of possible spells based on my selections of Domains and levels for each, culling said "it list" down to a workable number that is in keeping with the personality of the individual deity is still a monstrous task.
2nd edition did it pretty well
in fact they have a lot of ideas already on paper, you just need to compare spells|
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The last few campaigns I've played in it's not been much of an issue since the party invests heavily in wands of CLW and healing belts.
This frees the cleric from being responsible for party healing. Sure, he keeps close wounds (or similar death defying spells) on the list, but now he can focus on buffing up the party and participating in the battle instead of just being the healbot. This makes the divince caster class more attractive in our group. Alignment doesn't even come into the picture anymore, although we gravitate towards the N and G bands.
Our party is about to have a cleric and an archivist on the go. I expect the spellcasting duties will be divvied up then. The cleric is combat oriented, so he'll probably throw down some buffs (boost self and party) and get stuck in, while the archivist will debuff (dispelling, save or suck) enemies and look after battlefield control (Summoning, impediments). Both can heal in emergencies, but the CLW wands and belts look after most of the healing.
Ok, first of all, this thread is in wrong forum as it is not about ability scores or races...
But anyway, I do agree with OP, possibility of playing an evil cleric is limited as that channeling to inflict spells is a power of little actual usage unless you are NPC...so basically evil cleric PC is from AD&D, having to memorize healing spells beforehand (as is any neutral cleric who chooses negative energy).
To make it more useful, maybe evil cleric could channel spells like Doom and such negative effects, or boost the companions with unholy power! so they can do more effective carnage...there would be clear difference between good and evil clerics, but both would have uses in adventuring parties...evil clerics would not be healerbots, so wands of healing are a good investment, but they would be more effective boosters.
Discussion of actual balanced game mechanics I leave out for now.
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We play a campaign with evil characters. The only way our Evil cleric was going to be as effective in group play was to introduce the spell point option instead. Effectively turned him into a spontaneous caster for heal spells as long as he spent a slot in his daily prep.
Not the game fix to write for the main rules but it sure worked for our campaign. Disadvantage is it actually makes spell casters a little more scary as they can cast the big end spells multiple times as the spell point pool increases. We're about level 14 now and had to house rule a few spells to limit their power. Will play this weekend to see how Beta version of same spells plays out.
I did this. I included every spell also, so a God of Fire lets his priests cast burning hands and fireball.
It takes a lot of time now to tailor spell lists to each deity. I only do it each time a new PC enters the game with a different deity. Also, you have to limit the total number of spells or it gets ridiculous. I only allow PHB & SpC.
All spells yes, for each deity, no. The suggestion I've heard bandied about was something like, "each cleric picks three (maybe still two) domains and adds the list of domain spells to their spells known.
General: spell x, spell y, spell z, probably the cure spells, but maybe not; leaving them out would change the cleric, but maybe that's a good thing.
Fire: burning hands, fireball, etc..
Knowledge: bunch of the divination spells."
And so on. You'd only have to make one list for each domain and then write up some simple guidelines for how to add other spells to the lists.
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2nd Edition Spheres of Influence for Specialty Priests is what influenced me to take on this task, and the Domain system seemed naturally suited to it.
However, with thousands of spells, even once they're split into domains and keyed to the deity, a lot still don't fit for concept reasons and you still need to cull them down. For example, there are a lot of "Protection" spells (Abjurations) that deal with Fire or Prismatic or Chaos effects that just aren't appropriate to every deity, even if they offer protection to their priests.
It's a great idea and we have fun with it. It's a lot of work, but the flavor pay-off is tremendous.
But it is a lot of work.
Rez
such is the cost of customization
for a game i did soemthing similar taking all the spell lists and dividing it in earth, fire, water, air, and what i call chaos and order
it was lenghity, some spells repeated, some spells simply wnt out of the window because they fall in no area... so yes I DO understand the problem...
but this will definitively make avery cleric in the campaign different... i will just give them domains... remember that for the speheres were high access and low access, the 5 actual domain would be high... a few simialr ones (maybe 5 more) could be low access
Positive energy is the opposite of negative energy, but are they really the powers of good and evil? We'd call them good and evil if they were.
Expressing energy to hurt innocent folks might be an evil act, but is plugging in to negative energy an evil act?
What if you are using negative energy to restore a good undead creature?
The simplest solution is to allow access to positive and negative power for all clerics. Judge them by their actions, not their access.
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I have considered this in the past and thought it may be something of a problem. I have to say that the OP has a valid issue with the mechanics.
As is - an evil BBEG cleric facing the characters is unable to have the same capability of keeping his lackeys alive via channeling to heal unless those lackeys are undead.
IF indeed this is agreed by enough that it is a problem, there are three possible solutions:
1) Channeling should just HEAL living targets (regardless of evil or good energy), AND either heal, or damage undead in the area depending on if it is Positive or Negative. The Select Chanelling feat is very much important, you can wind up healing your enemy. So an evil cleric using chanel energy (negative) will heal all living targets and heal all undead targets in the area of effect. A good cleric would heal all living targets and damage all unliving targets in AoE. The downside of this one, is that evil clerics lose that cool ability to damage a group of heroes - but considering hero PCs can't do that to the enemy, either - its not necessarily unfair.
2) A feat that clerics can take that will change his energy type to do the other when he needs it. Thus an evil cleric usually will damage goodly folk in the area effect, but can opt to heal his comrades in a pinch if he has the feat - but would wind up damaging his undead lackeys. The downside to this is it does require the expenditure of a feat, but not all evil clerics will want to heal lackeys, or even be in a position to need to do so, so customizing such an ability with a feat only for those it makes sense for isn't that impractical or unfair. On the other hand, it will be a feat that alot of PC clerics will probably take, and suddenly will have the capability of damaging many enemies at once - but the evil clerics can do so, too; its just do we really want the PC clerics to have that much power (all subjects in an area - living or not, taking 1d6 per two levels of damage)?
3) Allow the cleric to choose to do either one at the time. Channeling is channeling. The downside to this is it gives a lot of offensive power to the PCs to be able to hurt masses of bad-guys with each use of the power; but this is something that the evil clerics can already do this as written - which can be seen as an unfair advantage. So the question is - do we want either or both sides to be able to do this.
Me, personally, I like option number 1 the best, and option 3 the least. But all options are better IMO than the way it is now where the evil clerics have NO option to do so.
As I wrote this -- it occured to me that this is not in an appropriate forum. Hopefully admin can move this to general discussion, and we can revisit this when it comes time to discuss classes.
Robert
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too much ebenfit for the evil cleric
considering he can animate undeads and control them, having at the same time human or living lackeys means that eh can booster his troops at the same time
so the damage the good cleric does heals the human lackeys, while the evil cleric would be able to cure his undead minions and living lackeys...(ok maybe the heroes too)
the issue is not only about mechanics... but about mysticism
positive and negative enrgies were not suddenly chosen as being good or evil they are not
life and death are part of a cycle... they just are contrary parts... positive is life, negative is death
yin and yang...
aside usually the fantasy games are Heroic games... if you want to be an evil cleric pay the price of following evil, you just can't get both benefits of good and evil...
for an example... read Exalted, both Solar and Abyssal, they are based on the same template but they are direct opposites, both have abilities to heal and hurt, but the issue is thematics... solar is positive, is life, they can heal, the abyssal have a much raw power for damage, to kill to maim, but they have very little options for healing themselves (ok they can heal undeads or create them)
no Pathfinder is not like Exalted, but the Mysticism of Positive and Negative energy are well portrayed just because a few players want to be evil, but DOES want to keeop being the BAND AID BOX (role that i hate by the way but the new channeling had let me help the group without sacrificing spells, which i sould have enver done in the past)
Evil clerics are not band aid boxes... while they would want to keeptheir followers alive, at the end they are tools, you look for a creative way to keep them that way, don't let gothose abilities that keep your work flowing...
and lets face the duty of evil clerics is cto corrupt or to destroy, or something in between.... most of the time for personal gain, allies are only tools to be used in the end, they can love as any normal person, but their loves and friednships are tainted by their viewpoint of the world.
if you want to be the non good character but want to use possitive energy, be neutral withan skewed view of the world...
you get negative or positive, that is all, a decision like being elf or dwarf, you got it, you stick with it...
being evil cleric and healing everyone... no way...